Thursday, May 04, 2017

Fake News exposed

In response to further questions, Comey concluded, “in my view, a huge portion of WikiLeaks’s activities has nothing to do with legitimate newsgathering, informing the public, commenting on important public controversies, but is simply about releasing classified information to damage the United States of America...“American journalists do not do that. They will almost always call us before they publish classified information and say, is there anything about this that’s going to put lives in danger, that’s going to jeopardize government people, military people or—or innocent civilians anywhere in the world. And then work with us to try and accomplish their important First Amendment goals while safeguarding those interests. This activity I’m talking about, WikiLeaks, involves no such considerations whatsoever.”The final statement amounts to a damning description of the collaboration of the so-called mainstream—i.e., corporate-controlled—media in the United States with the intelligence apparatus. WikiLeaks and Assange have proceeded in the tradition of actual journalism: collect facts and publish them, regardless of whose ox is gored. The “American journalists” praised by Comey are accomplices and stenographers of the military-intelligence apparatus. If, as Comey says, they “almost always call us before they publish,” it is because they, too, serve the interests of American imperialism.

Our press takes dictation.

It's always been known.

I don't know if it's ever been laid out so clearly before.

We don't have a free MSM press in the US.

And that's probably why they band together to call out so-called 'fake news.'

POLITICO'S Mark Perry reports
that Barack is planning to start the battle to retake Mosul in early
October and, "If Mosul is retaken, it would both mark a major political
triumph for
Barack Obama and likely benefit his party’s nominee at the polls,
Hillary Clinton, undercutting Republican claims that the Obama
administration has failed to take off the gloves against the Islamic
State."

Mosul was seized by the Islamic State in June of 2014.

Barack's 'answer' since August of 2014 has been to drop bombs on Iraq daily.

That was the plan.

Of course, Iraq's Prime Minister Hayder al-Abadi couldn't pull it together enough to even get it started in early October.

Even if he had, the notion that Mosul could be retaken in a matter of
weeks shows just how out of touch the Iraqi government and the White
House was with reality on the ground in Iraq.

QUESTION: Okay. Can we stay on [the Islamic State] and the battle of Mosul?MR KIRBY: Sure, sure.QUESTION: Okay. Is it turning out to be like a slog, or how are things moving? How are they progressing?QUESTION: No!MR KIRBY: Elise, do you want to come take the podium?QUESTION: Not today.

Elise's little outburst shocked even then-spokesperson John Kirby.

But that's how the western media has played it -- denial, denial and more denial.

Yesterday, the US Defense Dept announced:

Strikes in IraqIn Iraq, coalition military forces conducted four strikes consisting of 39 engagements against ISIS targets:-- Near Mosul, four strikes engaged three ISIS tactical units
and a sniper team; destroyed two fighting positions, two artillery
systems, a heavy machine gun, a medium machine gun, and an ISIS staging
area; and suppressed nine mortar teams.Additionally, three strikes were conducted in Iraq on May 1 that closed within the last 24 hours:

-- Near Mosul, May 1, three strikes destroyed three vehicle
bombs and three ISIS fuel tankers, and suppressed three mortar teams.

Witnesses and survivors of the US strike say the whole US story about ISIS putting them in the homes never happened.Rather, they insist airstrikes had been leveling houses in the area
for days, and ultimately everybody ended up collected into just three
houses close together, hundreds of people from scores of families, when
major US airstrikes came and brought the buildings down on top of them.Indeed, the whole reason the houses had been so popular with fleeing
civilians is that they were relatively far away from the fighting, and
they assumed there’d be no reason for them to be attacked, since they
were small and isolated. The Pentagon has yet to respond to the
eyewitness accounts, which radically differ from their own version of
events.

Iraq’s Foreign Minister this week asked
the United States to develop a financial plan for the reconstruction of
the country after ISIS, similar to a program developed for Western
Europe after the Second World War.In discussions with Special Presidential Envoy to the Coalition Brett
McGurk, Ibrahim al-Jaafari stressed the need for “collective support
from the international community to contribute to the reconstruction of
infrastructure after the defeat of terrorism.” Jaafari suggested “the
adoption of a project similar to the Marshall Plan which contributed to
rebuilding Germany after the Second World War.”Iraq will need billions of dollars to rebuild after ISIS. Large
portions of major cities were destroyed in the war, infrastructure was
neglected under ISIS, villages are riddled with mines and booby-traps.
The deputy governor of Anbar estimated that his province would need $22
billion alone for reconstruction.Um, never mind invoking the Marshall Plan. What needs to be cited
here is that the United States already spent billions to reconstruct
Iraq, from 2003-2010. I know. I was there. It was my job to help spend
some of those billions. We accomplished less than nothing. In fact, our
failure to reconstruct Iraq then lead in a direct line to the Iraq of
now. I cannot believe I am writing this. Again.